PowderAlarm

It has been snowing heavily on the northern slopes of the Alps recently. Our colleague Orakel has sounded the powder alarm twice in four days and that's saying something. We'll leave the specific details to him and focus on the bigger picture that makes it all possible.

The low pressure system that is making this weekend so inhospitable will really get going from today (15.4.2012) and in the south of the Upper Valais / in the Aosta Valley, – where there has already been over 30cm – there will be some more. But, and this is more interesting for most people now, it's also snowing where it's based, namely in the north. The direction of flow is slowly changing and by the evening it will have turned from east to northeast and then the flow may even turn to north.

It's dumping! And that in hurricane-force winds! The appropriate name for the upcoming system for freeriders would be: Dumpicane. As our PowderGuide weather expert, the only one who really knows her stuff, has already explained how it comes about (WeatherBlog for Freeriders 07/2012), here's what it means for us. It's "dumping"!